Touch the Sky
by badgerlady
Summary: Ginny, Harry, and Severus have settled into a comfortable life, but the younger generation will bring new challenges that threaten their peace. Follows Golden Snitch.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1. Nesting

Severus was all in black, only crisp points of white at neck and wrists. _No surprise there,_ Ginny thought, watching him cross the Hogwarts entry hall with his graceful, fluid stride. The surprise, to anyone who hadn't seen him during the three years since he'd been bonded to Harry, was that these were not the voluminous, concealing swathes of his old teaching robes.

The robes he wore now were beautifully cut, showcasing his slender form, and they were discreetly embellished by embroidery circling hem and cuffs and collar with the slightest jet glint of glossiness. The gleam was picked up in the sheen of his silver-streaked black hair, caught at the neck by a platinum clasp she herself had given him for Christmas into a thick, shiny tail falling halfway down his back. The clothes, the hair, and his upright posture lent the beaky nose and deep-set eyes a distinction that turned heads all around the hall.

_People appreciate him now. Better yet, he's learning to appreciate himself and come out of the shell he hid inside for so long. _Ginny mentally shook herself, smoothing down her russet silk robes. _What am I thinking, standing here clucking over him like a broody hen. He's my nestmate, for Merlin's sake._

As though he'd caught the thought, and even the word, he turned his dark eyes on hers and quirked his mouth just the tiniest bit—anyone who didn't know him well would have missed it. He changed course to swoop toward her.

In public, they referred to each other as brother- and sister-in-law: literally true, if not in the traditional sense. It was Harry who'd come up with the warmer term "nestmate."

Late one night at Grimmauld Place, basking before the fire on the floor between their chairs, Harry had tilted his head back to gaze fondly at them and said, "The two of you look like something out of heraldry sitting there. You're our sable eagle, Severus, and Ginny's our _gules_ griffin, rose red."

"And you," Severus had said in a voice like the bass notes of a cello, touching his elegant long fingers to Harry's cheek, "are our golden phoenix_, volant_,_ or_."

Harry had leaned into the touch, brilliant green eyes alight. "All winged creatures," he'd murmured. "Nestmates."

Severus had scoffed softly and turned away muttering about sentimental Gryffindors, but neither Harry nor Ginny had been fooled. Now even Severus referred to Godric's Hollow as "the Nest" and the children as "the fledglings."

And here they came now, flocking across the hall to where Severus had just joined Ginny, chirping and cheeping around them with their father flapping up behind. Harry's peacock teal robes highlighted his eyes in a face framed by his feathery black mop of hair. Lily was a plump little Ravenclaw bluebird, Al bright as a parrot in Slytherin green.

James though, Jamie was preening like a cardinal in scarlet plumage for the statuesque young woman on his arm, whose own red robes set off her sleek ebony skin and the tight-wound black curls trailing over her shoulders.

"Hey, everyone," he said proudly. "Here she is, the girl you've all been hearing about, the pride of Gryffindor, Teresa Zabini. Tess, these are my parents: my mother, Ginny Weasley; my father, Harry Potter; and my bond-father, Severus Snape. The brats you already know."

Ginny was pleased to see Teresa give her son an admonitory nudge before smoothly greeting each of the adults in turn. She nodded her head politely to Ginny and Harry as they shook hands, but she dropped a small curtsey to Severus. "It's an honour to meet you all," she said in a rich contralto. "Professor Snape, of course, has been an icon in our house for as long as I can remember."

"Odd sort of decoration your house must have," Al teased.

Severus, Harry, and Ginny all turned quelling looks on him, but before they could speak, a new man's voice came from behind Ginny's shoulder. "Quite odd, actually," it said in a lightly sardonic tone. "Holy cards, Quidditch trophies, and a large Snape shrine festooned with drying pasta in lieu of snakes."

They turned to see Teresa's parents approach from the corridor to the dungeon staircase. Madame Zabini_—Helena Diallo, Ravenclaw, _Ginny reminded herself—shook her head so that the elaborate arrangement of ribbons, beads, and tiny bells woven into her long dreadlocks rattled and tinkled. "Nonsense, Blaise," she said in a voice like her daughter's. "The incense you daily burn before the Professor's image would give the spaghetti a most peculiar flavour. Your mother would never stand for it."

She extended a manicured hand to Severus, who bent over it with a courtly bow and a wry look, which she returned with interest.

"Ginny, Harry," Blaise said, shaking hands with them, "good to see you again. Teresa, _cara mia,_ you're looking lovely today, even if you are telling tales out of school." He extended his thin dark hands to his daughter and they kissed each other on both cheeks.

"_Grazie,_ Papa," she said. "But I think that technically I'm telling tales _in_ school, am I not? For my last few moments as a student, at any rate."

Blaise shook his head at her with an indulgently long-suffering smile and turned his attention to Severus. "Professor Snape," he said with a slight bow. "Thank you for the reference regarding the use of lethifold skin in the Death Cap Draught antidote. I notice, however, that the author does not consider the possible effect of shredding rather than slicing—" The two potions masters drew a little aside and were soon deep in conversation, heads leant toward each other.

_He's like a shadow image of Severus, _Ginny thought. _As tall and thin, with that same disdainful expression, long nose and thin lips, all encased in skin almost as dark as his wife's. Wonder who his father was? Was he one of the ones the mother bumped off?_

Her speculation was interrupted by the appearance of the Malfoys in the entrance to the dungeon stairs, all as blond as the Zabinis were dark. Scorpius and Albus flew together and began chattering as though they hadn't seen each other in their common room only minutes ago. Draco and Astoria nodded to Harry and Ginny, then Draco's eyes went to Severus and Blaise with an oddly yearning look.

Impulsively, Ginny said, "Astoria, Draco, we were just going with the Zabinis to fête our two graduates at that posh new restaurant in Hogsmeade. Won't you join us?"

Astoria looked to Draco with a serene air of unconcern while Scorpius visibly restrained himself from begging. Draco met Severus's level gaze for a long moment, then turned to Harry. Some silent communication seemed to pass between them.

Draco drew a breath. "We thank you for your gracious invitation," he said, inclining his head toward Ginny but still looking at Harry. "But I'm afraid we must decline. I judge the time is not quite right."

Ginny brought her hand down hard on Albus's shoulder as he seemed about to argue. On his other side, Scorpius gave Al's fingers a quick squeeze and stepped forward to stand with his parents, face impassive.

Draco's hand rested on the back of his son's neck as he went on, "Astoria and I would be honoured, however, if all of you would join us at Malfoy Manor on Midsummer's Eve."

"St. John's Eve?" Blaise said. "Delightful. Thank you."

Harry silently canvassed Severus and Ginny, then nodded. "Yes," he said in a slightly rusty tone. "That would be—I think we would all—"

"He's trying to say thank you for the invitation," Ginny said, wondering why he'd accepted if the prospect bothered him so much. _They came to our Tripartite Bonding, but I suppose giving or taking casual hospitality is different._

Draco took his wife's arm and the two parties separated. As Ginny trailed her family and the Zabinis to the outer doors, she glanced back at the Malfoys. They had paused at the entrance to the Great Hall. Draco visibly braced himself before they plunged into the crowd of students and parents gathering for the Leaving Feast.

_The past still haunts him,_ Ginny realized. _I hope it won't be too awkward gathering at Malfoy Manor. _She hurried to catch up with her little flock. _What difference could one night with the Malfoys make to us? The Zabinis will be there, too, after all. We'll go, we'll have a nosh, faff about a bit, then get back to the Nest. No worries, nothing earthshaking._


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2. Brooding**

As always, Ginny loved getting back to Godric's Hollow for the summer. It meant Harry had to Apparate farther to the Ministry, but Ginny could set up meetings with clients to suit her own travel plans, and as for Severus, his owl-order potions business and research could be carried on in either of the identical labs in the two houses.

Sometimes Ginny wondered why they bothered to keep up the Grimmauld Place white elephant at all, especially since Kreacher had died last winter. But Harry liked the connection with the memory of Sirius, and it was sometimes convenient to be in town during the week. And since the bonding with Severus, a new advantage had presented itself: the multi-storey house with its warren of rooms and corridors afforded a privacy not possible in the more compact but open design of the country place.

In the early days of the Tripartite Bond she had bustled into the sunny kitchen at Godric's Hollow once and almost trodden on Harry and Severus just beyond the door. They were kissing; that was nothing new. What made Ginny stop and gulp was the sight of Severus's strong hands firmly cupped around her husband's jeans-clad arse.

"Sorry, sorry," she'd gabbled, hiding her red face behind her fingers, peeping just a little.

"It is I who must apologise," Severus said in a strangled voice, leaping away from Harry. "In future I will endeavour to be more discreet. I had no wish to give offense, or to cause you pain."

Harry had burst into guffaws. "You've not got Ginny's measure at all, Severus," he'd said. "Look at her face. She thinks it's hot!"

"Harry!" Severus's voice was scandalised.

And "Harry!" Ginny had chimed in, more exasperated than embarrassed. "Severus will think I'm a shameless tart!"

"Only because he doesn't know much about women," Harry had said complacently, upon which both Ginny and Severus descended on him with pokes in the ribs and tugs to the hair.

When they'd all stopped laughing and settled down with the tea that had been Ginny's aim in coming into the kitchen in the first place, she'd said more seriously, "Listen, gents, if this is to succeed we can't be kneazle-footing around the place the whole time. I want this to be a house full of love and affection, openly expressed. Just—" she'd given Severus a sly look from under her eyebrows "—let's say hands above the waist when the children are in the house, yes? And let's none of us forget the Silencing charms on our bedrooms at night. Agreed?" They'd clasped hands in a three-way knot across the table.

Now, with the children home for the summer, solitude—or privacy for a twosome—became even harder to achieve. Severus had taken over the former guest room, which was now referred to as "Father's room"; the one where Ginny slept was still called "Mum and Dad's room." There was an unspoken agreement that no one mentioned or appeared to notice which one Harry came out of on any given morning.

"My friend Keiko says it's like that in Japanese bath houses," Lily had said when Ginny tactfully probed to see whether she was bothered by the situation. "She calls it 'looking but not seeing.' To tell you the truth, Mum, the boys and I don't really want to know what the, erm, older generation is doing. Or even to think about you doing anything. In fact, please can we change the subject?"

This reticence on the children's part left Ginny in something of a quandary when Teresa Zabini was scheduled to visit for the weekend after Midsummer's. "Are we really supposed to pretend they're not sleeping together?" she asked Harry and Severus one evening when Al had friends playing music in the sitting room and the ensuing noise covered the adults' conversation in the kitchen.

"There is such a thing as decorum to be observed," Severus said.

Harry snorted. "I've never been able to tell where decorum ends and hypocrisy begins."

"I am aware," Severus said snidely.

"Git," Harry said.

"All right, boys, behave yourselves," Ginny said. "We're getting off the subject. Where shall we put her when she comes?"

"Let's see how things look when we go to Malfoys' next week," Harry said. "We are actually doing that, right?"

"Don't you want to?" Ginny asked.

"I reckon," Harry said. "Only I still have some fairly ambivalent feelings about him."

"I believe that is the purpose of the exercise," Severus said. "To find—what is that ghastly American expression?—ah, 'closure.'"

"I'm more a 'let sleeping dogs lie' sort of bloke myself," Harry said.

"You're forgetting about Scorpius and Albus," Ginny reminded him.

"True. I suppose we should try to get along for Al's sake."

"Lucius would be rolling in his grave, if they'd let him have one." Ginny immediately regretted her flippant remark, seeing Severus shift his eyes away from her and twitch his long fingers just a fraction. "I'm sorry, Severus. I know you were… close, once."

"'But that was long ago, and in another country, and besides, the wench is dead,'" Severus quoted softly.

Harry touched his arm and Ginny got up to refresh their tea by hand instead of using magic, to give them a moment together.

In the warm days that followed, Ginny watched her nestmates broodingly, thinking about love. She and Severus had grown fond of each other, while her own relationship to Harry had sharpened and deepened as his bond with Severus became a full-fledged marriage. Where she had feared feeling excluded, she found instead that Harry saw her afresh, and appreciated her more keenly than ever.

When he came to her at night, there was a spontaneity and romance to their lovemaking that restored peaks and dips to a landscape previously worn smooth with habit. Though the patterns of their interactions were essentially the same, there were little gestures and touches that were new. But more important than any innovative technique was the sense she had that her husband was reveling in her femininity, seeing her as a woman and as the particular woman she was with sharpened perspective.

For her part, she found that knowing Harry was also sleeping with another man had a double effect. On the one hand, it accentuated his maleness, her sense of him as other than herself. On the other hand, it meant they had a shared experience that added an almost sisterly sympathy to their interactions. And on a purely physical, atavistic level, she did find thinking about Harry and Severus together both erotic and sentimentally appealing, now that the Tripartite Bond had regularised the relationship and brought it within the safe boundaries of the nest.

As a bonus, on the nights Harry spent with Severus, Ginny rediscovered solitude, owning her own space and her own body as she had not been able to since her childhood as the only girl in a houseful of boys. She even asked Harry whether he wouldn't like to have a room of his own to retreat to on occasion, but he said he'd had his fill of isolation at the Dursleys' and never wanted to sleep alone again if he could help it.

Severus, predictably, required more private time than both Ginny and Harry put together, and was capable of snarling and snapping to ensure it when the cosiness of their life together threatened to smother him. Then he would retreat to his lab.

If the children were home, Albus would often join him, ignoring the threats and grumbles of the man Lily had first suggested they call "Father." But Severus's mutterings seemed pro forma where Albus was concerned; the boy had developed an interest and facility in potions brewing that forged a silent bond between them. James continued to treat Severus with a sort of brisk, respectful affection, while Lily unselfconsciously clambered onto his lap or twined her arms around his neck from behind his chair as freely and frequently as she did with Ginny or Harry.

_Perhaps love really is enough,_ Ginny thought. _Let's see if it gets us through this Midsummer's Eve venture._


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3. Hatching**

Ginny, Harry, and Severus Apparated to the outskirts of Malfoy Manor on the late afternoon of Midsummer's Eve. In honour of the holiday, they were in fine feather, dressed in linen summer robes in shades of green: Severus's a deep moss, Harry's a leafy emerald, and Ginny's a pale celadon like the first shoots of young ferns poking out of the ground.

They all paused for a moment, looking at the imposing white structure in the distance. After Lucius died in Azkaban, Narcissa had moved to the Dower House and seldom ventured to the main house any more, but Ginny was uneasy as they moved past the wrought iron gates and along the sweeping drive to the front entrance.

_Harry hasn't been here since the Snatchers brought him by force and he and Ron were imprisoned while Bellatrix tortured Hermione. And Severus—he was here with Voldemort; what horrors must he be remembering?_

The children had arrived by portkey earlier to prepare for the celebration, and the Zabinis were coming by floo, but the three of them had not wanted to floo or portkey. Though he didn't say so, Ginny knew that Harry was reluctant to arrive inside the wards, to find himself inside the house without a transition to acclimate to the idea of returning to an old enemy's lair.

Now she glanced at him. His breath was coming a little fast; Severus briefly reached a hand to the back of his neck and he calmed. "Last time I was here…" Harry murmured.

Severus's low voice answered, "My memories of this place are also grim, and I have many more of them than you. As I have suggested before, perhaps an opportunity to exorcise some demons?"

Harry nodded and firmed his jaw, lengthening his stride. The great entrance doors swung open as they approached, revealing—instead of the expected house elf—Draco and Astoria standing there to greet them, both dressed in white. Their feet were bare.

"You are welcome to this house," Astoria said formally.

"Good health and prosperity to all in it," they responded.

But before they reached the threshold, Draco stepped across it, lifting a silver basin from a stand just inside. "Before you enter, we invite you to share in a cleansing ritual."

Astoria joined him bearing a green bundle bound with silk ribbons in yellow, white and green. "Here's rosemary for remembrance," she said, "and for love and loyalty, together with purifying thyme."

Ginny wasn't sure how to proceed; the Weasleys had never gone in for this sort of formal rite. But Severus calmly turned the wing-wide sleeves of his robes back to his shoulders, so she and Harry copied him. Then, always following Severus, they took the aromatic herb bundle by turns, dipped it into the clear water in the basin, and laved their arms and hands, reciting, "Remembrance, love, loyalty, purity."

Draco set aside the basin and the linen towel they'd all dried with. Then, taking a breath and biting his lip, he took Severus's hands in his as Astoria drew Ginny to one side, indicating that what would follow did not involve the two of them.

Bowing his head, hair glinting in the afternoon sun, Draco lifted Severus's hands and pressed his lips to the knuckles of each in turn. Standing bowed over them, he said in a low but clear voice, "I pray thee absolve me of all my transgressions." He dropped Severus's hands and stood upright to look him in the eye.

"I absolve thee full willing," Severus said, voice thrumming like an organ. Then he in turn took Draco's hands and repeated the exchange in his own right. They kissed on each cheek, then Severus rested his forehead on Draco's for an instant, one long hand on the back of his godson's silver-gilt head.

Draco turned and began the rite again with Harry. By the time Draco lifted Harry's sturdy hands to his lips, Harry was crying, and so was Ginny. She'd never known Astoria in school, and didn't much care for what she knew of her tastes and manners, but in this moment of their husbands' reconciliation, they slipped their arms around each others' waists in an ancient, wordless sisterhood.

When Harry and Draco came to kiss each other's cheeks, Ginny heard Draco whisper, "I am sorry, truly."

"I know," Harry murmured, "I am too," then drew back to offer Draco his hand, which the other man solemnly shook.

Beside Ginny, Astoria drew a long shivering breath, handed Ginny the herb bundle, and bent to lift the basin for the men to rinse in again.

In the silence that followed, they could hear the voices of the young people beyond the formal gardens. "They'll be building the Litha bone-fire," Astoria said, "and harvesting the calendula. Let's go inside to wait for Blaise and Helena. Draco and I need to put on some shoes before we go out again, and I don't know about the rest of you, but I could use a drop of something."

"Talking of which," Severus said, drawing a bottle from his robes. "Mead of my own making, from honey of Ginevra's bees, aged in a cask made by Harry."

Draco took it from him with thanks and they stepped into the house, leaving the formality of the cleansing rite behind. _There is something to these old rituals, though,_ Ginny thought. _We've all been changed by what we just did._


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4. Pecking

By the time the Zabinis had arrived and sipped mead with them in a pleasant blue sitting room, dusk had fallen. Draco put down his glass with a sigh. "Excellent brew as always, Severus," he said. "But now I'm afraid we'll have to eschew civilisation for a bit and hark back to our ancestral roots again. Are we ready to return outdoors?"

"Of course," Blaise said. "Nothing wrong with a spot of ritual, you know. Even if this one has got rather attenuated and confused in these parlous times."

Still, Ginny found it easy enough to get into the spirit of things as they danced and sang around the fire, which seemed to be fed more by wood than actual bones. The elves laid out a lavish feast that they ate in a pavilion next to a reflecting pool lit by floating candles. Around the table sat wicker baskets heaped with sun-yellow calendula blooms that Lily and Teresa had harvested with golden sickles.

"Thus vanishes our housing problem," Severus said in an undertone when Teresa placed one in front of them.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

Light dawned on Ginny. "They have to be virgins to cut calendula on Midsummer's Eve," she said, remembering tales from her childhood. "She and Jamie aren't sleeping together."

"Well, that's a relief on several fronts," Harry said, going back to his roast quail.

After the meal they gathered back in the house, this time in one of the larger drawing rooms, for a stirrup cup and farewells. The adults were served May wine, the children white grape juice, both from pressings of fruit grown in the Malfoy conservatories. They toasted their hosts, and were toasted in return.

Ginny bent her head to breathe in the sweet scent of the woodruff flavoring her wine, so she didn't notice Jamie stepping to the center of the room till he spoke.

"Tessa and I have an announcement," he said. He extended a hand and she rose from the sofa where she'd been seated between her parents and joined him, smiling. "I've asked her to marry me, and in a fit of temporary insanity, she said yes!"

Beaming, Ginny rose to embrace them, Harry beside her. Severus, she dimly noted, was hanging back. Lily and Albus, obviously in the know, grinned at James, and the Malfoys smiled politely.

The Zabinis, though on their feet as well, were solemn-faced, however. Jamie spoke over Teresa's head to Blaise. "I apologize for not speaking to you first, sir. I fully intended to meet with you before she came to visit at the end of the week, and I was going to propose formally when she was with us afterwards, but somehow the spirit of Midsummer seemed to come over us, and I just went ahead." His voice became more uncertain as he went on, speaking to Blaise's grim face.

"I wish you had consulted me beforehand, James," he said, "I might have saved you both some pain. As it is, I am forced to spoil this lovely evening and create a public scene by telling you that this match is not possible."

There was a stunned silence, broken after a moment by Teresa's cry of "Mama!"

Helena slowly shook her head at the plea. "I am sorry, _ma fille._ Papa is correct, you cannot marry James Potter."

At a soft word from Astoria, the house elves collected the wine glasses as everyone sank back into their seats. Teresa took a side chair, and James perched on its arm, hand on her shoulder. Severus scooped Lily onto his knee, Albus squeezed between Harry and Ginny, Scorpius sat on a footstool near his parents, and everyone looked at Blaise and Helena.

"I assure you," Blaise said earnestly, "this is no reflection on you personally, James. You are an exemplary young man, and we had been proud and happy at the friendship between you and our daughter. But it can go no further. I sincerely regret our not having made that clear sooner. You are both so young, we thought of you as mere schoolmates. We had not realized the relationship had progressed to this point." At that he looked reproachfully at Teresa, who gave him back a defiant glare undercut by her trembling lip.

"Is it because of my family situation, because of my parents?" Jamie asked anxiously.

Blaise looked down his long nose, lips pursed, shaking his head. "Of which of your parents do you suppose I disapprove?" he said. "The one who's the slayer of Voldemort and hero of the wizarding world? Or the one who's the brilliant, talented daughter of one of the oldest, most distinguished families in the wizarding world? Or perhaps the one who is my own mentor and idolised professor, the greatest potions master since Salazar Slytherin himself, whose bravery and integrity are unrivaled in the wizarding world or any other? Which?"

Jamie flushed and ducked his head. "I know all that," he muttered. "I just didn't know if you—that is, some people think it's weird that I have three parents. I should have known you wouldn't be so conventional, sir."

Blaise relented with a small smile. "Indeed. As a man whose mother had seven husbands—though not, I concede, all at once—I would hardly be in a position to take such a provincial attitude."

"Then perhaps you would enlighten us as to the cause of your disapproval, and save us the embarrassment of further speculation," Severus said. His tone was smooth and civil, but everyone in the room could sense the underlying heat. It warmed Ginny's heart. _He's defending his chick,_ she realised.

Now it was Blaise's turn to look discomfited. He twisted his fingers around each other in his lap for a moment, glanced sideways at his wife, then blurted, "James is an exemplary young man, as I have said. But Helena and I feel strongly that mixed marriages are ill-advised. He is simply—not one of us."

There was another silence. Then, "You mean because he's white?" Harry said.

They all turned to stare at him. _After all these years in the wizarding world,_ Ginny thought fondly, _he still takes the wrong end of the wand._

Blaise, dark brow furrowed, said, "What earthly significance could that have? You have green eyes; your wife's are brown. Do you really suppose you are different in any meaningful way because of that?"

"Of course I don't. But then—? Oh, I see," Harry said, voice going low and steely, "it's me, isn't it? It's because my mum was Muggleborn."

Now Helena drew herself up in offense. "It's nothing of the sort," she said.

Beside her, Blaise shoved his left sleeve up above his elbow with something like a snarl on his usually civilised face. "I was never a Death Eater," he snapped, displaying his unmarked forearm. "I mean no offense to any in this house," he nodded at Draco, who nodded back, looking bemused. "But why would you suppose I have not outgrown nonsensical Pureblood prejudice, after fifteen years of teaching and encountering brilliant Muggleborns and Halfbloods? Because I am Slytherin, perhaps? I should think the spouse of Severus Snape would know better."

"I'm sorry, Blaise, I apologize," Harry said. "I do know better than that about you, or I thought I did. But in that case—what is it?"

The misunderstandings seemed to have burned away Blaise's self-consciousness. With aplomb and a hint of hauteur, he announced, "We are Catholics."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5. Fledging

The gathering ended in a flurry of apologies to the Malfoys, polite demurrals, and a last brief embrace between Draco and Severus. The Zabinis and the Potter-Snapes Apparated from the Manor, side-along with their children, rather than stand about awkwardly waiting turns at the floo.

Back at Godric's Hollow, James declined tea or conversation and took himself off to bed with the younger two. The three adults sat in the sitting room looking at each other uneasily.

Suddenly, draining his cup of tea, Severus rose and went upstairs without a word. Ginny held off for as long as she could, but eventually she just had to find out what was happening. Harry gave her a knowing look as she muttered something about a forgotten book and followed Severus up.

Once upstairs, she stopped outside James's partly open bedroom door, prepared to pretend to be there to say goodnight, when she heard her son's voice say, "Father, you've been dead. What do you think? What does it all mean, this religion lark? Is it really so important?"

Peering in guiltily, she could see Severus on the bed next to James, long legs propped on the duvet with his feet cocked to keep his boots off it.

After a short pause, Severus said, "I suggest your dad would be the better person to ask about such questions. My otherworld experience was presented as an opportunity to engage with my sins. His was for healing, and the reward of his heroism. Do you not think he would be the better resource?"

"No, I don't. To tell you the truth—" James's voice dropped low, "sometimes I wish he wasn't a hero. I mean, I know that you're one, too, sir, but stupid girls—and grown men and women, too, for that matter—don't come smirking up to me asking if I could possibly get them your autograph." He fiddled with the edge of his sheet, watching his fingers. "Don't get me wrong, I'm proud as blazes of Dad, and I love him more than anything. It's just—sometimes it feels like he belongs to too many people, you know?"

"I do know," Severus said.

"And all the crap he's been through. I mean, it makes me feel like my own problems are so—I don't know, inconsequential. I realise he doesn't think that, he always takes me seriously, but—Merlin, Father, he lost his parents, his godfather, you, then his great reward was he got to sacrifice his own life. And then when he got it back he had to fight for his life again against the greatest evil wizard of the age. And I'm supposed to go whingeing to him because I can't decide whether to turn Catholic?"

"Your dilemma is not trivial," Severus answered. "Nor would Harry dismiss it as such. I hope you can overcome your reluctance to seek his counsel. Meanwhile, I will assist you if I can, of course, but it is unclear to me how I may be of help. My own experience of formal religion is limited. My mother had abandoned her family's Druid roots; my father was nominally Chapel, but since he was also an habitual drunkard, he was persona non grata among his coreligionists. I believe I have some Jewish ancestry, but know even less about that tradition."

Jamie sighed and shifted against his pillow. "Dad says his parents and grandparents were C of E, but given the Dursleys' example he's never practised it. I know the Weasleys are all fairly secular, though they're originally Old Religion. All these years I've enjoyed Christmas and Easter and never thought much about why we were celebrating them. I really don't think I'm a Christian, though."

He raised himself on one elbow, peering up through the shadows in the darkened room at Severus's face. "So I'm thinking, since I don't believe in any of it, what difference would it make if I pretend I do, just to make things easier for Tessa? I don't want to hurt her parents' feelings. Though I mean to marry her, with their approval or without it, and she feels the same. That doesn't mean we should just ignore what they think. But still, it just doesn't sit right to think of making promises I don't mean, pretending to take on a religion I don't hold to."

Severus ran his fingers up James's face and tangled them in his tousled hair. "I can tell you something about living a life in service to vows one inwardly repudiates," he said softly. "I do not recommend it. It is damaging to the soul, even undertaken for the best of motives."

Jamie leaned into the touch. "So you think my pretending to be Catholic would be like your spying for the Light all those years? Does Professor Zabini know you equate the pope to Voldemort?"

"Impertinent imp," Severus said, ruffling Jamie's hair. "Just like your impossible parent."

"That's me," James chuckled. "You forgot impatient, impudent, impenitent, um… importuning, and highly improbable." Looking up at Severus, his smile stilled to contemplation. Almost wonderingly, he said, "You know, Father, I really love you."

"And I you, my son," Severus said softly, leaning down to kiss the top of his head.

Ginny slipped silently away from the door. When Severus came out of the room, she was standing by a table in the passage, adjusting some silk flowers in a vase. She looked up to meet his eyes and they nodded at each other before Severus turned and made his way down the stairs. She moved after him, into the sitting room where Harry waited for them.

He was leaning on the mantel, moodily kicking at a charred log. He turned at their approach. "How's Jamie?"

"Severus sorted him, for the moment," Ginny answered.

"Well, I just firecalled Blaise," Harry said. "He and Helena will come along with Teresa Friday afternoon so we can thrash this business out. I'm not having our son's happiness compromised by some stupid prejudice that no one cares about any more. Religion affecting our lives? Really? What century is this? I mean, if this sort of thing still had any importance in the wizarding world, they would have had religious services for students at Hogwarts, wouldn't they?"

Harry turned toward them with a satisfied air, then faltered at the look on their faces. "Wouldn't they?" he repeated, sinking onto the sofa.

Ginny and Severus glanced at each other, then took chairs on either side of him. "Harry, they did," Ginny said gently.

"They did?"

"Did you never happen into the rooms on the lower levels of Ravenclaw Tower on a Sunday morning, when they held adjacent Masses for the Anglicans and the Roman Catholics?" Severus put in. "Dumbledore led the one, and they brought in a priest for the other. The service for Presbyterians was on the seventh floor, as I remember, just past the Room of Requirement. Minerva led it."

"Dean used to go to that one sometimes," Ginny agreed, "though his family were Baptists. And on Saturday mornings the same room was used for Jewish services, but Anthony Goldstein once mentioned to me that they had trouble sometimes getting ten people together for them. I forget why that was important."

Harry's jaw was hanging open. "Wait, 'Dumbledore led'? He was, like, ordained? And McGonagal, too?"

"It was expected of headmasters at one time," Severus said. "Actually created something of a crisis at Canterbury when the first woman was appointed by the Hogwarts trustees, back before the modern Anglican policy was instituted. Presbyterians liberalised their regulations earlier, I believe."

Harry waved a dismissive hand, shaking his head. "But—I mean, all these services? Why didn't I ever know they even existed?" he demanded.

Ginny shrugged. "I suppose no one ever thought to mention it to you, since you didn't seem to be interested, and nor was anyone in your immediate circle. "

"They were under a Notice-Me-Not illusion," Severus added. "Dating from the days of Mary Tudor, then Elizabeth—when first Anglicans, then Roman Catholics, could be persecuted by the church in power at the time. These days, students who inquire are given directions."

"My friends were involved in all this?" Harry asked weakly.

"Not directly," Ginny said. "Hermione's parents were Unitarian, I think, but she never followed up with it. And of course Ron and I were raised in a shockingly lax manner when it came to religion." She chuckled. "It used to drive Auntie Muriel spare, that we could never be arsed to present ourselves at her annual Samhain feast. 'You're raising those children to be absolute heathens,' she used to rail to Mum and Dad. 'This so-called Hallowe'en celebration is a poor shadow of the Old Religion, and as for All Saints' Day, stuff and nonsense.'"

They all laughed at her spot-on imitation of Muriel's nasal, hectoring tone, then Ginny sobered. "I suppose it's no laughing matter, if it's become a problem for Jamie. We'll have to see what Blaise and Helena have to say about it, I suppose."

In silent accord, they rose and made their way upstairs, where Harry kissed Ginny and held her in the way that she had learnt meant he would spend the night with Severus. "That business with Draco has us both a little unsettled," he murmured. "We need some time together."

"Of course," she said. "You did a fine job with Jamie tonight, Severus."

"He's a fine lad," Severus answered, bending to press a fraternal kiss to her temple.

_Well,_ Ginny thought, watching the two of them move down the passageway with their arms around each other's waists, _if Severus Snape can mellow that much, I suppose anything's possible. _

_###_

**A/N: I'm getting a fair number of hits on this story, but almost no reviews. Since I've never posted chapter-by-chapter this way, I'd appreciate some feedback as we go along. Thanks for reading, anyway.**


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6. Cooing

Late Friday afternoon, the family gathered nervously in the sitting room to await the Zabinis.

The floo flared, but instead of the expected three, four people exited two by two: first Helena and Teresa, then Blaise holding the arm of a snowy-haired man clad in white robes with a black cape-collared cloak. Ginny took a minute to remember where she'd seen clothing like this before—the man was a friar or a monk, or some sort of priest, anyway. _And Muggle, at that, judging by the way Blaise is guiding him through the floo._

"Harry, Ginny, Severus," Blaise said, shaking hands with them in turn. "This is Father McKay, a Domincan friar. He was the priest who served Hogwarts in our day, as you may remember. We met by chance as I came out of Blackwell's in Oxford just now, and he kindly agreed to come along to facilitate the beginnings of our conversation here. I hope you don't mind."

"I recall seeing Professor Snape about the corridors in those days," the elderly priest said in a soft Irish-inflected voice. "Mr. and Mrs. Potter, I've not had the pleasure."

"It's Ms. Weasley, in fact," Harry said a little stiffly. "Won't you have a seat, sir?"

"I hope you can stay to dinner," Ginny said, mentally Transfiguring the table larger and wondering whether she'd have to conceal the process from this Muggle stranger.

"Ah, I'll not impose, I thank you, ma'am," he said. "I'd only a few words with Blaise, that gave me the thought I might be of assistance perhaps. I only wanted to meet you all, then I'll be off."

Once introductions were done and the adults seated, Albus and Lily brought out the cream tea they'd all prepared earlier. Leaning to serve Severus, Al accidentally slopped a little tea onto his saucer. "Sorry, Father," he said. "Let me get you a clean one."

As Severus instead performed Tergeo on the spill, Father McKay looked up interestedly from spreading his scone with jam. "Professor, I never knew you for a man of the cloth."

"Nor am I," Severus said. "It is a family title."

"But Mr. Potter is in fact the children's father, isn't it so?"

"Severus is our bond-father," James said firmly.

"Now there's a word that's new to me, though I've been priest to magical folk these thirty years and more."

Beside Ginny, Harry gently pressed aside Lily's proffered plate of cucumber sandwiches and rose smoothly to his feet, green eyes snapping. It didn't take the tremor on the surface of her clotted cream to remind Ginny that her husband was one of the most powerful wizards alive, though his generally mild, unassuming manner cloaked his strength most of the time.

Now he stood in the midst of their genteel gathering in his modest brown house robes with magic pouring from his very pores, invisible but tangible as heat off a stove. "Mr. McKay," he said evenly, "there is only one man in this house who is called Father, and it is his house, and his family, as much as anyone's in this room. His position is not to be challenged, however you may disapprove of our relationship."

The priest's half smile never wavered, though he did set down his plate and cup. "Sure, it's not for me to approve or disapprove, Mr. Potter," he said. "Forgive me if I came at this wrong-footed. 'Twas only curious I was, but it has no bearing on our business today. And you may call me 'Brother Michael,' if it suits, for I'm friar as well as priest, or simply 'Michael'; my title is no matter at all. The matter is these young people, and the love between them. 'God is love,' the Scripture tells us, and I'm not the man to gainsay love, given all I've seen in my life."

The vibrations of Harry's magic calmed a little, though he remained standing. "Yet I often heard my uncle say, when I was growing up, that men who loved men were freaks, condemned by the Christian God to eternal damnation."

Father McKay tilted his head to one side. "A wizard, your uncle was, then?"

Harry snorted and relaxed his shoulders a notch. "Hardly. We were hell-bound, unnatural freaks, as well, according to him."

"And yet here you all are, two families as wholesome and loving as the good Lord ever smiled upon. Who am I to speak against you?"

"With respect," Severus put in, "you cannot deny that your church, like my own unlamented father's, has condemned people to torment and death, and their souls to perdition, for practising magic. Or homosexuality, for that matter."

"I don't deny it. Would you deny that there have been those among you willing to torture and murder Muggles, as you call us, for what we are? Or to allow those devil creatures you call Dementors to suck the souls from folk, sometimes without even a trial?"

Harry breathed sharply in through his nose and sat down again.

Father McKay turned toward him. "Any culture, any faith, can beget a Hitler, a Pol Pot, a Voldemort," he said. "My own Dominican order produced the Grand Inquisitor Torquemada, who sent so many poor souls to the stake. We are judged not by who we are, but by the choices we make, as my dear late friend Albus Dumbledore used to say."

Teresa spoke up. "But Father Michael, wasn't witchcraft condemned by the Church for most of its history, not just under a few bigots?"

Father McKay looked at her fondly. "The witchcraft the Church condemned was thought to be the fruit of an unholy alliance between the practitioner and the forces of darkness rather than an inborn trait. That power, we now know, springs from a nature bestowed by God, and can be used for evil or for good, as I need not remind you fine people. And it seems to me that the same can be said of the varieties of love, whether those involved are of the same sex—or of different faiths."

Everyone in the room had been listening and nodding. At the last phrase, Blaise started and Helena dropped her biscuit into her tea. "Father!" she exclaimed disbelievingly.

He gave her the same mild smile he'd earlier bestowed on Harry. "Surely you don't still think only Catholics go to heaven, child, do you? Of course not. We've grown beyond such narrowness. And we've grown to know that marrying out of the faith need not mean spiritual exile and disaster.

"Not that it's an easy road, mind you," he cautioned, turning to the old settle by the fireplace where Jamie and Teresa leaned against each other. "You'll have much learning to do, both of you, and thought and work and compromise. And don't be afraid to have a bit of a laugh now and then, will you? I'll help as I can, and both your parents, but the labour of love will be yours. Good preparation for a marriage, so I'm told."

He pressed a fingertip into the crumbs on his plate, then to his mouth with childlike relish. Wiping his fingers on a linen napkin monogrammed "P" (for Severus's mother, Eileen Prince, rather than for Potter), the old priest stiffly levered himself out of his armchair.

"Now, Blaise, if you'd be so kind as to see me back to Blackfriars, I've Vespers in ten minutes. Ms. Weasley, Mr. Potter, Professor Snape, thank you for your hospitality and your patience with an old man's dithering. Blaise and Helena, children, I hope to see you again soon—perhaps at Mass on Sunday? Now the Lord bless this house and all in it." He made the sign of the cross in the air, stepped into the floo with Blaise, and disappeared in a gout of green flame.

"I almost expected him to go up the chimney like Father Christmas," Lily said.

"He's left a sack of ideas for us to unwrap, in any case," Teresa said, looking up at Jamie.

"Yes, we have a lot to talk about," Helena agreed.

"Perhaps we can talk while we prepare the next meal, and clear the remains of this one," Severus suggested. "Since we're to be family rather than guests and hosts?"

"We'll work together, certainly," Helena said, getting to her feet and gathering teacups. "But we still haven't settled this business."

"No," Ginny agreed as she picked up the plate of chocolate biscuits and Levitated the tea tray, "I still don't understand exactly what you and Blaise are so worried about."

They all moved into the kitchen and began putting leftovers into the cold cupboard and stacking crockery into the sink, where Ginny set off the washing-up charms.

They heard the floo in the sitting room, then Blaise came into the kitchen. But once again he was not alone. Beside him stepped a large, formidable mahogany-skinned lady dressed in multicoloured robes, hair cropped close to a regal head.

"I stopped at home to fetch the wine I forgot to bring earlier," Blaise said, "and look who I found: Mamma."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7. Billing

Ginny gulped. _Blaise's mother. Oh, Merlin, what was the name of her last husband again?_

Severus saved the moment. "Madame Camara," he said with a bow. "Welcome to our home. It has been too long since we have met."

"Severus!" she exclaimed in a London accent with a slight Caribbean lilt. "So it's true you've thrown your lot in with Harry Potter's family. If I'd known you were after a doss and a toss, I'd have proposed to you meself. And you once called me Sallie."

"_Ma belle-mere!"_ Helena said despairingly.

Her mother-in-law was unfazed. She folded her arms and looked about the room. "Ginny Weasley, in the flesh," she said. "Our little Tessa used to collect your chocolate frog cards. Whenever Blaise and Helena were browned off at her for skiving off studies to play Quidditch, she'd say, 'I wager Ginny Weasley's parents never made her stop training simply to revise some stupid essay.' She likely only wants your boy so she can get at you."

"Granny!" Teresa squawked.

"And Harry Potter, hero of the age, such a well-set-up lad as you are. The two of you playing Darby and Joan till along comes a Slytherin serpent to wiggle in the garden, eh, Severus?"

Ginny and Harry stared at each other wide-eyed. Blaise's eyes were on the ceiling and his lips moving, whether in prayer or a calming spell Ginny couldn't tell. Helena had her hands over her face. Albus and Lily were stifling horrified giggles while Teresa had given in to hysterics on Jamie's shoulder. James rolled his eyes at Ginny in a silent plea for help.

Ginny hardly dared look at Severus, but when she chanced a glimpse she saw he was smiling knowingly at their newest guest. "Sallie, Sallie, Sallie," he said. "Kindly place your considerable and delectable backside in a chair and shut yer gob."

"Hmph," she said, obeying the first of his directions and ignoring the second. "How would you know how delectable it is? You're queer as Ananias."

Al and Lily gave up the struggle and collapsed to the floor, howling. Severus merely said, "Be that as it may, we are attempting to put together a meal here. Stop making mischief, young lady. The rest of you lot, get to work."

He began to assemble ingredients and utensils, setting them out on the worktop as Ginny thought, _But it's not mischief she's made, it's laughter and looseness where there was tension and solemnity. This lady will bear watching._

"Here." Severus unceremoniously shoved a cutting board toward Blaise with an onion and a paring knife. "Medium dice. After that you can mince the garlic, then chop the parsley."

Blaise meekly began to slice the onion while Severus distributed other tasks: blanching and peeling tomatoes to Ginny, browning sausage meat to Harry. Helena was directed to grate cheese while Jamie and Teresa made the salad, Albus brushed oil on the garlic bread, and Lily set the table. Severus put himself to whisking eggs, sugar, and wine in a saucepan on the cooker for zabaglione.

Madame Camara, seated magisterially at the kitchen table, shook her head at the commotion. "Someone care to explain why you're doing this without magic?" she demanded. "I understand about no house elves, can't stand the silly buggers meself. But slaving like navvies when you've but to wave a wand—"

"Mum always says it just doesn't taste the same," Ginny said.

"Doing it this way is fun," Harry opined.

"It is," Blaise agreed. "Like preparing potions ingredients. There's a magical component to cookery, as well as to brewing."

Severus said with finality, "Preparing a meal by hand is as much a bonding ritual as any done with incense or candles. We will work together, and together be nourished by the fruits of our labours."

"Reminds me of the Eucharist," Helena commented.

Ginny was glad to hear Lily ask, "What's that?" saving her the embarrassment of displaying her own ignorance. Blaise began to explain.

An hour later they were sitting down to dinner as Al said, "So just to recap, you believe that you're eating bits of bread oojahs and sipping wine but it's really some dead bloke's body and blood, and that's a good thing? But Druids were wicked and bloodthirsty for practising human sacrifice?"

"Al, don't be disrespectful," Harry said, passing the basket of hot garlic bread while Ginny served the salad and Severus dished up the spaghetti.

"Sorry, Dad, I don't mean to be. It's just—I'm trying to get my head 'round it here. Was Jesus a wizard?"

"That, my boy, is a question that has engaged many a wizarding discussion," Blaise said professorially, sprinkling cheese on his pasta. "But while it is true that many of Our Lord's miracles might be explained by spells that any of us here could perform, some cannot. The loaves and the fishes, for example—can anyone tell me what that was?"

"Ooh!" Lily raised her hand as though in class, and at Blaise's nod said excitedly, "I read about that one, he took five thousand loaves and seven thousand fishes and… er…"

"And made three people eat them?" Severus said sarcastically. "The original Jewish mother, evidently."

Lily wrinkled her nose at him. "So I have it back to front, all right. But the point is, he made a lot of food."

"Yes, and?" Blaise prodded.

"And that's against Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration!" James said.

"Correct." Blaise nodded approvingly. "An ordinary mortal, magical or no, cannot create food out of thin air. It relates to the Muggle principle of Conservation of Matter, as well."

"But you can increase the quantity," Al objected.

"Yes, but not to that exponential extent. It would have no nourishment, and the Gospel explicitly says the crowd were satisfied. As, to revert to our earlier topic, the Eucharist satisfies the soul."

"That's the part I still don't see," Al said.

Suddenly Sallie Camara, who had been silently demolishing a plateful of food that would have satisfied a hippogriff, said wistfully, "I miss Communion."

"How d'you mean, you miss it, ma'am?" James asked. "Don't you get it once a week or whatever?"

"No, not for years. I was raised Rasta, you know, and only converted to Catholicism when I married Zabini. I stayed in the Church through three more husbands, but I had to turn Muslim for Camara; my Moustafa insisted on it, and it made no difference to me. It's all my eye and Betty Martin, in my book. But I still miss Communion."

"How can you miss it if you don't even believe in it?"

"I believe in the power of it, the beauty of it. It's hard to explain if you've never known it."

"But _Maman,"_ Helena objected, "if you don't believe in Transubstantiation—that Jesus is present in the Eucharistic elements—if you don't even believe in the divinity of Jesus…"

"Who says I don't? Jesus was marked by God for a special destiny, almost murdered as an infant, lived his life in service to others, sacrificed himself for the good of the world, and rose from the dead. Of course he was divine."

"That sounds like Dad," Al said.

"You've got it," Sallie nodded, beaming. "Harry Potter's as divine a man as any I know of, batty boy or no. I mean to say, only look at him! Sweet and ripe as a mango. You don't think he's a son of God?"

Everyone started to talk at once, a gabble of voices in tones ranging from exasperation to horror to chiming affirmation. Ginny listened not to the words but to all the accents: Sallie's London Jamaican, Helena's African French. Blaise was shifting seamlessly between English and Italian, the children chattering in tones flattened by years of listening to American pop singers and Estuary newsreaders.

Severus's cultured Oxbridge was ordinarily flawless, but once when Lily flew above the treetops standing on her broom, he'd yelled, "Ey oop, lass!" as broad as any Tyke, and that reversion to his Northcountry blue collar roots still echoed in her ears when she listened to him now. Her own standard English took on a hint of Devon burr when she was at the Burrow or talking to Hagrid, while Harry's never wavered from its suburban Surrey blandness.

_We're like crows and pigeons and larks and robins all clamouring together,_ she mused. _But we can understand each other._ She tapped her glass with her knife, and when that had no effect, cast Sonorous on her throat. "Listen to me a moment!" They all fell still as though Silenced.

She stood up. "Half of us don't know what the other half are talking about, and some of us think we know and simply don't like what we hear. Father McKay said earlier we have a long road ahead. I say we keep talking, but we have to do more than talk. This Sunday the Potter-Snapes will go to Mass with the Zabinis, and Madame Camara can come and enjoy Communion whilst the rest of us learn what it's like. Now, the vital question: who's for pudding?"


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8. Birds of a Feather

James and Teresa spent Saturday morning alternately talking and snogging, so far as Ginny could tell. In the afternoon all of them except for Severus joined in a pickup Quidditch game during which Tessa demonstrated the Seeker's skills that had won Gryffindor both the Quidditch Cup and the House Cup three years running.

"You could play for England," Ginny said as they hung their brooms in the back vestibule. "I've not seen anyone as fast as you since Harry."

"Thank you," Tessa said. "I do enjoy it. But I don't plan to go professional the way you did, Ms. Weasley."

"Call me Ginny, dear."

"Ginny, then. D'you mind my asking, wasn't it hard for you, being away so much in the first years of your marriage?"

"It was, and it meant putting off having children for a few years, as well. But I loved my time with the Harpies; I don't think I'd choose otherwise, had I to do it over."

As they talked, they'd moved into the kitchen, where Severus was layering veal cutlets with artichoke hearts and mushrooms in a baking dish.

"You layabouts wash up, I could use some assistance here," he said severely. "Some of us have more profitable ways to spend our time than chasing after useless objects and cavorting like children."

Ginny elbowed the small of his back as she passed on the way to the sink behind Teresa. "Don't be a crosspatch," she said.

Harry had come in, flushed from exertion and sun, sparkling with laughter and energy. "Let's not have any of that 'I'm-the-evil-bat-of-the-dungeons' act from you, Sev. I saw you watching us through the window, grinning like the Cheshire Cat."

He hooked an arm around Severus's neck from behind and leaned up to kiss his cheek, then joined Ginny and Tessa at the kitchen sink, playfully jostling his wife's hip to make room for himself.

"We were talking of Teresa's plans," Ginny told him.

"Aside from marrying James," Teresa said firmly.

"It's decided, then?" Ginny asked her.

"So far as we're concerned, it is. Whatever obstacles remain, whether from my parents or the Church, we're determined to deal with them."

James, Al, and Lily piled into the kitchen from the downstairs washroom. Albus went to one side of Severus and reached for a mushroom. Severus slapped his hand away, not seeing Lily on his other side as she palmed four of them and surreptitiously passed them to her brothers and Tess.

"How are you planning to deal with them?" Harry asked as James joined him, Ginny, and Tessa at the kitchen table. Severus plonked aubergines and courgettes on the table along with four knives. They started slicing while Severus turned back to the worktop to pour sherry and cream over the meat and put it in the oven, then went to the cooker to begin the rice.

"So far, we've been comparing notes on what we actually believe and what we think is important: what life's about, I suppose," James said. "We're pretty well together on that. The question is how great a part formal religion is going to play in our lives, and the lives of our children some day."

Tessa put in, "I realised, trying to explain my faith to Jamie, that I don't actually have a firm grasp on some of the theology myself, so my first task is to talk to Father Michael and start educating myself on my own religion."

"For my part," James said, "I want to learn more about all of them, and do a little exploring. I don't know that I'm so much interested in theology as I am in practice. Why are there all these ceremonies, and why are they so different, when our ethics are basically the same?"

Ginny said, "The Muggles in Ottery St. Mary, the Muggle village next to ours, have a ceremony where they run through the streets with flaming barrels of tar on their backs. I'm sure it has a meaning, but I'm not sure it's really worth it. And where does magic fit into all of this?"

Teresa nodded at her. "My mother's Fulani people in Guinea understand magic as springing from the spirits that reside in everything in nature. Even the Muslim majority, who hold to one God as we do, acknowledge the existence of unaccountable powers and mystic phenomena. But there are dark practices, as well. The mutilation of young girls, for example, which neither Islam nor the bush religion require, but has been an almost universal custom for generations. Only the Catholic Church's forbidding of it saved Mother. It's the reason her father brought her to England; her own grandmother wanted to do it to her."

Ginny pressed her knees together and shuddered, while Lily paled and stopped nibbling her mushroom. The males in the room looked queasy. _As well they might,_ Ginny thought.

Severus joined them at the table and began sorting through a bowl of gooseberries. "Here we touch on what your priest was speaking of," he observed. "The way any religious system may be corrupted by error and misusage."

Al shifted impatiently, putting down his knife. "Excuse me, but this conversation seems like a load of—" He gulped at the look in Harry's eye and started again. "I'm trying to say, what difference does all this make, I mean in real everyday life? Dad, when you were fighting Voldemort, or looking for Horcruxes, or even before that when you lived with those dreadful people, did you ever pray?"

Harry waved his wand to send the sliced vegetables to the sauté pan, looking thoughtful. "I'm not sure, oddly enough," he said. "Not formally, certainly, but I did often have a feeling that there was something greater than myself operating, and that I could draw strength from it. I thought of it in terms of my dead mum and dad; they were the ones I called on at need."

"I prayed," Severus said unexpectedly in a low voice, eyes on his hands. "When the Dark Lord had me screaming on the floor, or when I was forced to be a party to dreadful deeds, and when I lay dying in the Shrieking Shack, the words I learned in childhood came back to me. I prayed that Harry might live, and that my soul should not be damned."

Albus, closest to Severus, pressed a hand over his, and there was a long silence. Eventually Severus cleared his throat and looked up. "If I have found salvation," he said, "it is in the love of this family." He rose and left the room.

Lily moved as though to go after him, but Harry shook his head at her. "Let Father recover himself, sweetheart. He'll come back when he's ready." He took a deep breath and turned to Tessa and Jamie. "So beyond the religious question, what is the plan?"

"While I'm studying for the Bar and doing my pupilage under Aunt Hermione," James said, "Tessa will be training as an interpreter for the International Confederation of Wizards. Would it be all right for us to live at Grimmauld Place for a while?"

"For as long as you like," Harry said. "And we'll add a wing to this house for you, as well. I suppose you'll want your own place eventually—"

"Possibly," Teresa said. "But I rather like the old way, where several generations live in the same place, if that's all right with you. I think it's better for the children. My papa was raised by his grandmother, you know; whatever Granny got up to, Nonna Zabini was always there for him."

_That's why his Catholicism is so important to him,_ Ginny realised. _It came from the part of his life that was his only constant, growing up._

"That system is workable only when extended families are stable and congenial," Severus said, coming back into the room. "My own was neither, and any attempt to force us together would have been disastrous."

"In my case, the older generation were all dead, and the ones who were left hated… well, me. I suppose they liked each other right enough," Harry said.

"Whilst my family are both settled and loving," Ginny said. "But as the youngest I felt a bit smothered by them. I suppose what's needed is also a willingness to allow each member to fly on their own as well as providing a safe nest to come back to."

"Then we should be fine," Jamie said, beaming at them all.

**A/N Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the U.S.; if you're not American, I hope you have much to feel thankful for in any case. As a holiday gift to me, review, please? Next week: the final chapter of this arc. Thank you to all of you for reading.**


	9. Chapter 9

_A/N: I am posting this final chapter in memory of my beloved husband, who was killed last night when his car hit a stranded pickup on a flooded stretch of road and went into the creek. We were married for 48 wonderful years. It wasn't enough. But he loved this story, so it seems fitting to finish it today, 4 Kislev, 5772._

Chapter 9. Touch the Sky

James's faith in his family bolstered Ginny the next morning, when they Apparated to Oxford for Mass at Blackfriars. They were all in Muggle garb, though Tessa had told them that was not necessary. "If we wear robes, they'll just think we're in some sort of obscure lay order," she'd said. But Ginny had wanted to blend in to the larger flock, thinking she'd feel conspicuous enough by virtue of her unfamiliarity with the situation.

The church in the Blackfriars Priory was her first surprise. She had vaguely expected some heavily Gothic cathedral with pointed arches and stained glass instead of this simple barrel-vaulted space lit by clear windows.

The liturgy seemed flat and uninteresting, with pedestrian prayers and undistinguished music. Bored, she found her eyes wandering around the congregation in their uncomfortable wooden seats. She glimpsed Father Michael amongst the brothers arrayed on either side of the altar. Most of the other people seemed to be nondescript middle-aged Muggles with a scattering of undergraduates and a few of the panhandlers they'd had to navigate through at the entrance.

Out of the side of her eye, she kept track of the Zabinis and Madame Camara, who sat calmly with her eyes closed and her fingers twined on her capacious lap. Ginny glanced to her other side to check on her own family. Severus sat rigidly upright on the end, alert and guarded as though expecting an attack. Harry beside him looked attentive and mildly interested. Lily was openly staring at the other congregants, while Al pored over a hymnal, mouthing lyrics to himself. James had his head bent to Teresa's, sharing a missal and occasionally stealing a look at her demurely pious expression.

There were some readings from the Bible that they sat through, then one that they stood for, though Ginny wasn't sure what made that one different. After that they sat again while the priest spoke of something called the Holy Trinity, which seemed to be three parts of one God but she must have missed something, because he also seemed to say it wasn't that at all. Then came more sitting and standing, and also some kneeling. Blaise had advised the Potter-Snapes to stand and sit when the others did, but to sit when they knelt. Ginny, though, decided to kneel with the Catholics to get a fuller sense of the experience.

So she was on her knees when the words of exhortation and response lifted out of the mundane and took on a poetic rhythm, sounding in a silence she could almost touch. The silence became complete, as the young celebrant faced the congregation. He raised the white disc of bread in both hands, saying, "This is my body." A bell chimed, heads raised to look—and a shiver of wild magic ran through the flock.

Ginny looked to her family; they were feeling it, too. Madame Camara, on her other side, was rapt. _Something is happening here,_ she thought. _Something is being tapped into, a power or an energy beyond the words and the space._ The priest was raising a golden chalice now, intoning behind the sound of the bell, and the people bowed, and magic was all around them, and love poured down like sunshine from the heavens.

Ginny sat through the rest of the service—the prayers and the handshaking and the blessings and the faithful filing forward to consume the essence of their God—feeling she had touched the sky.

They went home and resumed their lives. As the summer wore on, Jamie and Tessa continued their explorations and discussions, sometimes with his family, sometimes with hers, or with both together. They consulted Father McKay, they read books, they even went to Malfoy Manor to discuss Pureblood customs with Draco and Astoria. They hammered out a plan for raising their children by educating them in a variety of traditions and allowing them to choose their own path, a compromise that made no one entirely happy. "So we must be doing something right," Jamie said cheekily.

At summer's end they all went to Auntie Muriel's for the Samhain feast. The harvest was in, and the cattle and swine slaughtered for the winter store. She had set up trestle tables in her fields and invited all the neighbours. They ate and drank and sang and told tales of the dead. George Weasley made the assembly roar with memories of his irrepressible twin; Harry had them sighing with stories of his parents appearing to him in the graveyard so long ago, and again with his godfather at the bidding of the Resurrection Stone.

Severus was coaxed to speak briefly of his own sojourn beyond the veil between the worlds, when he had reconciled with Harry's father, his old enemy, then chosen to rejoin the living. "Though it seemed to me then that I was brought back against my will, I know now that some part of me was drawn to begin anew and seek a better fortune," he concluded, and the villagers cheered and clapped him on the back. Ginny beamed at her nestmate as he seated himself again on the rough bench.

"You love him, don't you?" Tessa said to Ginny under cover of the noise.

"I do," Ginny said, leaning against Harry beside her. "And I've developed something of a crush on him, as well, though I've no intention of acting on it, even if I could."

Harry chuckled and nuzzled her hair. "That would be witchery even beyond you, love," he said. "Severus is not a man for women, though he loves you dearly."

"And this doesn't bother either of you?" Tessa asked.

"One of the advantages of our long lives," Ginny answered, "is the leisure it gives us to develop our relationships. In a marriage that may last a hundred years or more, every new strand can weave a stronger, sounder nest. Look at my parents, or your Granny Camara. Though even their grandchildren are grown, they're still in their prime. They can love new people whilst holding true to their older vows and attachments. We all can learn and grow as long as we live; our family's already been enriched by the connexion with yours. Religion and race, country and culture: the varieties are endless as the stars, and as beautiful."

At the other end of their long table, Muriel was calling for the concluding rite of the evening. They got up and prepared themselves, gathering in the middle of the field. Masked and robed in white, they joined the procession of villagers passing between the sacred bonfires. The purifying flames crackled and leaped, shooting sparks toward the frosty moon.

Ginny felt the warmth of the blaze on her arms, and the crisp chill of the night air on her face, and the unshakable depth of the earth under the straw stubble beneath her feet, and the sense of water flowing through its foundations trembling in the deeps. Once again magic shook around and through her, calling to her soul and binding her to the world about her even as it lifted her above petty daily concerns. _God is here, too, _she thought, joining hands with her husband and her children and the strangers and family and friends that surrounded them. The sky touched the earth, and they were one with it.

James and Teresa were married at Hogwarts on the Winter Solstice. Father Michael, by now an established family friend, conducted the service on the dais of the Great Hall, its enchanted ceiling ablaze with the colours of sunset. They were reflected in the robes of those present, and in the multiple hues of their skin, and echoed in the multitudinous accents in which they wished the new couple well.

During the party that followed, the aurora borealis flared and swirled above them through the dark and brilliant sky, and Ginny's heart swelled till she thought it might burst. Sallie Camara whirled Severus about the floor, Harry led Minerva McGonagal in a decorously circling two-step, Blaise smoothly steered Ginny around the hall's periphery alongside Draco Malfoy with Helena. The newlyweds, robed in white and gold, swayed in the center clinging together, an almost unmoving sun within the orbit of the dance.

Three days later, on Christmas Eve, the young couple came from Grimmauld Place, where they had taken over the third floor, to join the family at Godric's Hollow. On Boxing Day they'd depart on a honeymoon that would take them on a circuit encompassing relatives in Italy and Guinea and end at the Burrow.

Today they had helped deck the public rooms on the ground floor with holly and ivy, and given the finishing touches to the tree. At nightfall they had all supped on oyster stew and a magnificent bûche de Noel sent by Helena. Now, at the end of the evening, Ginny stood with Severus and Harry, Lily and Albus, in the sitting room watching Jamie and Tessa come down the steps toward them.

Teresa, in deep blue robes flecked with silver stars, spangled net over her tight dark curls, stopped at the foot of the stairs, looking at the rest of the family in surprise. They were all in resplendent holiday plumage as well, gathered in a semicircle before her. "Am I—is there some activity I was unaware of?" she said. "I had planned to go to midnight Mass; Jamie knew, I thought it would be all right."

"Of course it's all right," Harry said, stepping forward and offering her his burgundy-robed arm. "We're going with you."

"But—but you're not Catholic!"

Severus draped her winter cloak over her shoulders, swirling his own as he turned to inspect the state of Al and Lily's outerwear. "Are you of the opinion that such pagans as we will not be allowed within the hallowed precincts?" he asked darkly.

"Of course not, sir. I simply don't understand why you would want to come."

Ginny responded. "It's a holiday for all of us, but it's a holy day for you. We want to share it with you, Tessa. What's important to you is important to us. You're our family."

As they stepped outside before Apparating, Ginny put her head back, breathing in the sharp clear air. Above them the vast vaults of the diamond-set sky arched, unknowable and unfathomable. Behind them, the Nest glowed with warm lights through sheltering curtains. It would be waiting to receive them on their return.

_Fin, Dayenu_


End file.
